BOE delves into racial balance issue

Lisa Chamoff

Updated 10:42 pm, Friday, October 19, 2012

The town has an important decision to make over the coming months: how to address racial imbalance at two elementary schools.

And according to Superintendent William McKersie, the district has several options. At the top are three broad options -- magnet schools within the district, cross-district magnet schools and redistricting.

Now it's up to the school board to narrow down the list.

McKersie this week presented the board with a report based on his conversation with state Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor about the situation at Hamilton Avenue and New Lebanon schools, along with updated data on the racial makeup at the town's schools, information on the district's magnet programs and information on how school space is utilized.

At the meeting at Eastern Middle School, the school board also voted to approve the district's $10 million capital budget for 2013-14.

On the issue of gaining racial balance, the commissioner and his senior staff said the district also had some other suggestions, including strengthening the district's work with the International Baccalaureate program, improving and expanding preschool and creating one or more elementary schools focused on science, technology, engineering and math, McKersie said.

Pryor also said that charter schools aren't an option for Greenwich, because he doesn't think they will address the racial balance problem.

The state can only authorize a limited number of charters each year, and they are awarded to communities with high percentages of students from low-income families.

McKersie did mention that there was the option of a charter school created by the district, but it would have to be approved by the state, and it wasn't clear it would be open to the idea.

He also said that Fairfield Public Schools, which also has schools cited for racial imbalance, was trying something with preschools.

They would have children attend preschools out of their neighborhood, with the thought that some families could decide to send their children to that school for the later grades. McKersie said that is experimental, and not guaranteed to solve the problem.

The state will also work with administrators over the next several months as plans are developed, and will allow Greenwich to phase in the implementation, with full implementation in fall 2014.

Under state law, a school is considered racially imbalanced if its proportion of minority students varies more than 25 percentage points from the district average. In Greenwich, the district average is about 33 percent.

At Hamilton Avenue, about 68 percent of the school's 337 students are minorities this year, and at New Lebanon, about 69 percent of 241 students are minorities in 2012, according to new data provided by the district at Thursday night's meeting.

With the magnet programs at Hamilton Avenue and New Lebanon, there's a very slight change -- roughly 1 percent to 3 percent -- in the minority population of those schools, McKersie said. The district's schools are also at about 95 percent capacity overall. For Hamilton Avenue and New Lebanon, the percentage is higher.

"You have even less room in those schools to bring in new students," McKersie said. "Even if those were the most magnetic programs they could be there's no room."

McKersie mentioned that the options include modifying existing magnets or establishing new ones, allowing open choice and providing transportation.

McKersie also said that "IB is solidifying pretty well," so it might not be a good idea to scrap that program at New Lebanon.

"The typical pattern is to sweep in and change something substantially that's just on the verge of having great success," McKersie said.

Board member Peter Sherr said that while he doesn't want to open the can of worms that was the IB debate last year, he thought that if the district was going to beef up the program, it should get data on schools with the IB program, showing the performance of students over time.

Board member Nancy Kail pointed out that the IB program at the International School at Dundee, created in 2000, was successful because it was created after a long, thoughtful process.

"I don't mind pushing back on a time frame that makes sense," Kail said.

Board Chairman Leslie Moriarty said that at the next meeting, the focus should be on ideas for improving student achievement that would have impact on racial balance.

At its next work session on Nov. 1, the board will work on narrowing down the options. Board member Adriana Ospina also suggested that there be time allowed for public comments, so that parents can share their views on the initial discussion of the racial imbalance issue.

At the last meeting, the school board discussed the importance of fully funding school maintenance after the BET Budget Committee's draft budget guidelines recommended the district spend no more than $8 million on capital improvements.

Sherr, who negotiates teacher and administrator contracts for the school board, noted that on the last two contracts they had negotiated a tremendous savings in health care costs, and that the BET should note this. He also confirmed with Managing Director of Operations Benjamin Branyan that the district could get $10 million worth of work done in the summer months, which is the small window of time the district has to complete capital projects. Branyan said that was possible.

"Right now, I think our job is to approve what the district thinks its needs to maintain its buildings," Moriarty said.